Home care workers deserve respect

By CHARLEY REED AND DAVID ROLF, GUEST COLUMNISTS

Published 9:00 pm, Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Help Wanted: Family seeks dedicated and trained caregiver to help aging parent stay in own home. Responsibilities include bathing, dressing, cooking, bowel and bladder care, medication reminders, paying bills, cleaning and shopping. Pay is $7.68 an hour; no health benefits or retirement. The job involves heavy lifting but no workers' compensation coverage is provided. Caregiver must be on call 24/7 but will not receive overtime, paid vacations or sick days.

Sound absurd? It is, but it's also the reality for tens of thousands of seniors, people with disabilities and caregivers in Washington state.

Tens of thousands of elderly and disabled residents rely on home care workers in order to live at home with dignity and independence. Helping people this way saves taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year by keeping them out of more expensive institutional care.

But the pay scale for home care workers results in high turnover and a long-term care system woefully inadequate to meet the challenges it faces in the next 30 years.

The Legislature now has the opportunity to provide dignity and respect to caregivers and help ensure that seniors and people with disabilities can find the home care workers they need to live independently. Two years ago, the public overwhelmingly supported Initiative 775 -- sponsored by a coalition of senior groups, disability activists and caregivers -- to reform the home care system. In addition to empowering a consumer-led board to establish a registry of caregivers and improve training and oversight, the initiative also gave home care workers the right to negotiate collectively for higher wages and benefits.

Last summer, 26,000 home care workers voted to join together to have a voice to advocate for a living wage and good benefits. And last fall, a team of home care workers from across the state negotiated a first union contract with the state's new Home Care Quality Authority.

If honored by the Legislature, the contract would raise wages to $9.75 an hour over the next two years, provide health benefits to all uninsured home care workers who work at least half time and extend workers' compensation benefits to all caregivers.

The negotiations and the contract reflect both the need for a substantial improvement in wages and benefits and the real fiscal constraints facing our state. The union didn't get everything it asked for. Wages will remain under $10 an hour (the union's initial proposal was $12). Left for future negotiations were retirement plans, paid vacations and sick days, tax withholding and health insurance for part-time caregivers.

But it's an important step forward for home care workers who will be closer to a living wage and have some protection and security if they get sick or hurt on the job. It's a step forward for seniors and people with disabilities struggling to find and keep qualified caregivers at the current wages and benefits. And it's a step forward for our state, as it will help stabilize our long-term care system as the demand for home care services grows.

Two years ago, the public put into motion a process for caregivers, seniors and people with disabilities to work together to improve the home care program. The caregivers did their part by voting to join a union and negotiate for higher wages and benefits. The consumers -- through the Home Care Quality Authority -- did their part by negotiating a reasonable and responsible contract that will improve the home care system. And Gov. Gary Locke did his part by forwarding the contract to the Legislature for funding.

Now it's time for legislators to honor the contract and improve wages and benefits for home care workers.